The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien. Christopher Tolkien

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СКАЧАТЬ in which you will see that, as is all too easy, I have got the hero into such a fix that not even an author will be able to extricate him without labour and difficulty. Lewis was moved almost to tears by the last chapter. All the same, I chiefly want to hear what you think, as for a long time now I have written with you most in mind.

      I see from my Register that I sent 3 chapters off on October 14th, and another 2 on October 25th. Those must have been: Herbs and Stewed Rabbit; Faramir; and The Forbidden Pool; and Journey to the Crossroads; and the Stairs of Kirith Ungol. The first lot should have reached you by now, I hope about your birthday; the second should soon come; and I hope this lot will get to you early in the New Year. I eagerly await your verdict. Very trying having your chief audience Ten Thousand Miles away, on or off The Walloping Window-blind. Even more trying for the audience, doubtless, but authors, qua authors, are a hopelessly egotist tribe. Book Five and Last opens with the ride of Gandalf to Minas Tirith, with which The Palantir, last chapter of Book Three closed. Some of this is written or sketched. Then should follow the raising of the siege of Minas Tirith by the onset of the Riders of Rohan, in which King Theoden falls; the driving back of the enemy, by Gandalf and Aragorn, to the Black Gate; the parley in which Sauron shows various tokens (such as the mithril coat) to prove that he has captured Frodo, but Gandalf refuses to treat (a horrible dilemma, all the same, even for a wizard). Then we shift back to Frodo, and his rescue by Sam. From a high place they see all Sauron’s vast reserves loosed through the Black Gate, and then hurry on to Mount Doom through a deserted Mordor. With the destruction of the Ring, the exact manner of which is not certain – all these last bits were written ages ago, but no longer fit in detail, nor in elevation (for the whole thing has become much larger and loftier) – Baraddur crashes, and the forces of Gandalf sweep into Mordor. Frodo and Sam, fighting with the last Nazgul on an island of rock surrounded by the fire of the erupting Mount Doom, are rescued by Gandalf’s eagle; and then the clearing up of all loose threads, down even to Bill Femy’s pony, must take place. A lot of this work will be done in a final chapter where Sam is found reading out of an enormous book to his children, and answering all their questions about what happened to everybody (that will link up with his discourse on the nature of stories in the Stairs of Kirith Ungol).¹ But the final scene will be the passage of Bilbo and Elrond and Galadriel through the woods of the Shire on their way to the Grey Havens. Frodo will join them and pass over the Sea (linking with the vision he had of a far green country in the house of Tom Bombadil). So ends the Middle Age and the Dominion of Men begins, and Aragom far away on the throne of Gondor labours to bring some order and to preserve some memory of old among the welter of men that Sauron has poured into the West. But Elrond has gone, and all the High Elves. What happens to the Ents I don’t yet know. It will probably work out very differently from this plan when it really gets written, as the thing seems to write itself once I get going, as if the truth comes out then, only imperfectly glimpsed in the preliminary sketch. . . . .

      All the love of your own father.

      92 From a letter to Christopher Tolkien

      18 December 1944 (FS 68)

      Your news of yourself does not in some ways add to my equanimity: a dangerous trade, but may God keep you, dear boy; but as you seem to be enjoying part of it more than anything up to now, I take comfort in that. I should feel happier, if your time was better organized, so that you could get reasonable rest: training by straining seems irrational. But I fear an Air Force is a fundamentally irrational thing per se. I could wish dearly that you had nothing to do with anything so monstrous. It is in fact a sore trial to me that any son of mine should serve this modern Moloch. But such wishes are vain, and it is, I clearly understand, your duty to do as well in such service as you have the strength and aptitude to do. In any case, it is only a kind of squeamishness, perhaps, like a man who enjoys steak and kidney (or did), but would not be connected with the butchery business. As long as war is fought with such weapons, and one accepts any profits that may accrue (such as preservation of one’s skin and even ‘victory’) it is merely shirking the issue to hold war-aircraft in special horror. I do so all the same. . . . .

      This morning. . . . I saw C.S.L. for a while. His fourth (or fifth?) novel is brewing, and seems likely to clash with mine (my dimly projected third).¹ I have been getting a lot of new ideas about Prehistory lately (via Beowulf and other sources of which I may have written) and want to work them into the long shelved time-travel story I began. C.S.L. is planning a story about the descendants of Seth and Cain. We also begin to consider writing a book in collaboration on ‘Language’ (Nature, Origins, Functions).² Would there were time for all these projects!

      93 From a letter to Christopher Tolkien

      24 December 1944 (FS 70)

      I am v. glad that you enjoyed the next three ch. of the Ring. The 3rd consignment shd. reach you about Dec. 10 and the last on 14 Jan. I shall be eager for more comments when you have time. Cert. Sam is the most closely drawn character, the successor to Bilbo of the first book, the genuine hobbit. Frodo is not so interesting, because he has to be highminded, and has (as it were) a vocation. The book will prob. end up with Sam. Frodo will naturally become too ennobled and rarefied by the achievement of the great Quest, and will pass West with all the great figures; but S. will settle down to the Shire and gardens and inns. C. Williams who is reading it all says the great thing is that its centre is not in strife and war and heroism (though they are understood and depicted) but in freedom, peace, ordinary life and good liking. Yet he agrees that these very things require the existence of a great world outside the Shire – lest they should grow stale by custom and turn into the humdrum. . . . .

      By the way, you wrote Harebell and emended it to Hairbell. I don’t know whether it will interest you, but I looked up the whole matter of this name once – after an argument with a dogmatic scientist. It is plain (a) that the ancient name is harebell (an animal name, like so many old flower-names), and (b) that this meant the hyacinth not the campanula. Bluebell, not so old a name, was coined for the campanula, and the ‘bluebells’ of Scotland are, of course, not the hyacinths but the campanulas. The transference of the name (in England, not in Scotland, nor indeed in uncorrupted country-speech in parts of England) and its fictitious alteration hairbell seems to be due to ignorant (of etymology) and meddlesome book-botanists of recent times, of the sort that tried folk’sglove for foxglove!, by whom we’ve been led astray. As for the latter, the only part of the name that is doubtful is the glove, not the fox. Foxes glófa occurs in Anglo-Saxon but also in form -clófa: in old herbals, where it seems pretty rashly applied to plants with big broad leaves, e.g. burdock (called also foxes clife, cf. clifwyrt^fn8=foxglove). The causes of these ancient associations with animals are little known or understood. Perhaps they sometimes depend on lost beast-fables. It would be tempting to try and make some fables to fit the names.

      Are you still inventing names for the nameless flowers you meet? If so, remember that the old names are not always descriptive, but often mysterious! My best inventions (in elvish of the Gnomish dialect) were elanor and nifredil; though I like A-S symbelmynë or evermind found on the Great Mound of Rohan. I think I shall have to invent some more for Sam’s garden at the end.

      94 To Christopher Tolkien

      28 December 1944 (FS 71)

      20 Northmoor Road, Oxford

      My dearest:

      You have no need to reproach yourself! We are getting lots of letters from you, and v. quickly. . . . . I am glad the third lot of Ring arrived to date, and that you liked it – although it seems to have added to yr. homesickness. It just shows the difference between life and literature: for anyone who found himself actually on the stairs of Kirith Ungol would wish to exchange СКАЧАТЬ